Winter
by Silmarillion
Summary: Arwen reflects on her choices.


Disclaimer: Characters, setting not mine, not intended for profit.

A/N: I'm playing havoc with canon here. As inspiration came from Elrond's 'Your hands are cold', let's just say that this is movie-verse.

Frost had settled into Aragorn's beard. And a chill wind blew from the West. And Arwen Undomiel no longer watched the stars.

Arwen was always cold in the city. The white marble jealously guarded its icy beauty, even in the heat of summer. She would wake freezing in the middle of the night, from some monstrous dream. Alone. Her lord husband was often gone, fighting or merely overseeing his kingdom. It frightened her sometimes to realize how little she knew of Men.

On good days, she turned her back on the call of the sea: forgetting for hours, even days at a time. She ignored the song of the stars, thankful for bright torches with which men held the darkness at bay as if it were an enemy to be conquered. For the night-sky was the domain of Varda, sacred to the Elves and somehow the Second-born remembered this with unease. Arwen's nights were difficult, haunted by visions of death all the more terrifying for their newness. For Elves do not sleep as Men do.

But in a land where the Lady of the Golden Wood had been spoken of with fear and loathing, a land where the tongue of the Eldar had long ago faded into meaningless ceremonial phrases, it was easy to forget. Like the dreams that now came to her, Arwen both welcomed and feared this passing of memory.

And then Elanor came. The beautiful hobbit-maid, with the bright hair and brighter mind. For she had been told stories of the Eldar, and could prettily, haltingly, speak a few phrases in the language of Arwen's other life. Master Samwise had hoped that his eldest daughter would be a good companion to the queen, allowing her a link to the past. But Elanor made it impossible to forget—Arwen's daughters loved the _Lay of Leithian_, which Elanor knew so well. Arwen smiled and was thankful for the hardiness of the race of Men; they did not die of broken hearts.

For that was what she was expected to do—smile prettily. Certain things were expected of the Queen of Gondor, so strange and unlike those her husband's people. For try as she might, they were never her people. At times Queen Arwen felt like a curiosity on display, meeting the respectful but inquisitive stares of those who knew nothing of her people. Or rather, those who had been her kin. And were no longer.

The seasons passed slowly. And with each year, the weight of the hall, so unlike that of all that she had known, became harder to bear. She longed for the _mallorn _of Lórien, but found no comfort in the White Tree. Instead, it filled her with a curious sort of dread. She shivered when she passed it, and avoided the courtyard.

Arwen grew adept at avoidance, at keeping her eyes down and her heart closed.

But the longing grew more difficult to ignore. On bad days, Arwen sat as a statue on her throne, eyes steadily ahead but seeing nothing, her face a mask. She longed to stay in her chambers with her grief, but knew her duty. Aragorn's smiles were rare now and deeply creased with wrinkles—she would do nothing to cause him grief. 

It terrified her to think that this would someday happen to their children. At times she could not look at Eldarion, strong and fearless with the first bloom of youth, without seeing the old man that he would become. She saw Sárie, growing old and bitter with the knowledge that but for her sex she would rule. And worst of all, she saw Ancalime, her darling and youngest, keening her grief over a fallen soldier and then dead in childbirth with the weight of sorrow marking her still young face.

The Gift of Man it was called. Arwen wondered what kind of gift could lead to such pain. Men not bound to Middle-Earth, yet knowledge of their fate was in itself a fetter. And it bound Arwen, like a songbird pining in a cage.

The frost had settled into Aragorn's beard. It touched also the heart of the Evenstar, who alone saw the longing in his face as he looked toward the house of the dead.


End file.
